Photo courtesy of Financial Markets Research Center at Vanderbilt. Credit: Chad Driver Productions.
Wayne Ferson recently completed his second term as the Executive Editor of The Review of Asset Pricing Studies and, consequently, retired from that position in December 2017. Wayne was recruited to become the founding Executive Editor of The Review of Asset Pricing Studies and the first issue was published in December 2011. From the beginning of his work on the journal, Wayne was focused on creating a topflight journal, not just starting an additional journal, which was a vision consistent with that of the Founders of the Society of Financial Studies when they created The Review of Financial Studies over 30 years ago. Wayne spearheaded an effort to attract high quality submissions to RAPS and was consistently contacting authors to consider the journal. Wayne was nonstop, tireless, and dedicated to the journal, spending many hours reviewing, editing, and attending conferences to solicit papers. He was innovative in collaborations among himself and his co-editors in considering how to attract additional submissions. Wayne’s contributions to the Society of Financial Studies went beyond his service as Associate Editor of RFS (1992-1994), Editor of RFS (1996-1999), and his more than 6 years as Executive Editor of RAPS. For example, he also helped Matt Spiegel come up with the idea of dual submissions, an innovation that has significantly enhanced the SFS journals. We thank Wayne for his dedication and contributions to furthering knowledge in finance.
